Design Proposals

How long have I got for this section? Due in on 12/10/05
How many marks is this bit worth? 12
How many pages should it occupy? 4

This is an important section of your project because it is here that you sketch out your ideas that will form the basis of your design and then choose the best of these to develop.

Range of Ideas – 4 marks

In theory it is easy. Keeping the brief and specification in mind, all you have to do is to sketch a number of different ways of solving the problem. You can do this by considering the whole project or by looking at individual parts. The key to this section is variety and flexibility of thinking. The more varied your ideas are the more marks you will earn – it is as simple as that.

For Systems and Control you will need to show different solutions for the design of you circuit too. Again, it might be best to consider individual aspects - how to connect input/output devices, using potential dividers and transistors to control the system - rather than draw out entire circuits. You will not be able to produce a circuit which has never been thought of before and there are only a limited number of ways of getting your circuit to do what you want it to. Nevertheless, if you show some ideas and suggest different flow diagrams to be incorporated through PIC Logicator, you will get credit.

Some Top TIps!

* Don’t use a ruler - it will slow you down. Think of this section as licensed doodling, where quantity (and particularly range) is more important than the quality.
* Use colour/shading sparingly, perhaps to represent shape, texture or material.
* Don’t redraw your ideas “in neat”. It is a waste of time.
* Cutting out your ideas and sticking them onto bits of coloured card is a criminal offence as is word processing your annotation.
* Use notes to comment on how well the ideas meet the criteria of your specification. Don't simply describe what you've drawn!

Evaluation of Design Ideas – 4 marks

When you have a good variety of ideas you will need to review them against the specification. Choose the idea that stands out, or choose the best parts from a range of ideas, to suit your specification. By the end of this section you should have clearly shown the design that you have developed.

Communication Techniques – 4 marks

Though we are not looking for little works of art, your sketches should be clear and, where appropriate, shown in 3D. A variety of graphic techniques will earn you more marks and the inclusion of a CAD drawing will help you to reach a top mark.

It is not a good idea to use ProDesktop or Sketchup for sketching, however. You are better off using a humble pencil to sketch out your ideas and then have a go at generating a good CAD drawing of your favourite 2/3 ideas.

In the How To... link you will be able to download help files for using ProDesktop.